


His Mother's Eyes

by devilinthedetails



Category: PIERCE Tamora - Works, Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Arguments, Disappointment, Eyes, Family, Father & Son - Freeform, Gen, Inheritance, Magic, mother & son - Freeform, resolutions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-30
Updated: 2018-06-30
Packaged: 2019-05-31 06:06:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15113369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/devilinthedetails/pseuds/devilinthedetails
Summary: Kally and Roald inherit their father's eyes and his Gift, but Liam has his mother's eyes and her lack of magic.





	His Mother's Eyes

His Mother’s Eyes

Kally and Roald had Jon’s piercing sapphire eyes that could cut like razors and calm like waterfalls, and they had inherited their father’s bright blue Gift that Thayet thought of as the color of magic as well. For Kally, formal testing in her magic had been just that: a formality. Her Gift–powerful and passionate–had burst from her in waves without her bidding. With training, her mastery of her magic improved, though she remained prone to losing her hold on it when she was distressed. Roald’s Gift, to Thayet’s uninitiated eyes, appeared to be quieter and not as strong as his sister’s but more tractable. It, as far as Thayet could see, came when he called upon it and obeyed his orders, and he could wield his magic deftly. 

Liam’s eyes were hazel like Thayet’s, and he seemed to have inherited more than his eyes from her. Just as she had no trace of magic sparking within her, she had never glimpsed so much as a flicker of it in Liam. She and Liam, who scoffed at the twiddling thumbs of mages, accepted his lack of a Gift, but Jon, stubborn as a badger in probing Liam for signs of the magic he seemed determined to find where Duke Baird and Numair had failed, continued to test Liam as if in the hope that a Gift might materialize where there had been none before. 

When Thayet stepped into a study in the royal wing to collect from the shelves lining the walls a rather tiresome treatise on taxes Gary had suggested she peruse before that afternoon’s council meeting, she know instantly that such an examination was in process. Beads of sweat that had nothing to do with the golden June sunshine streaming through the windows dripped from Liam’s creased forehead down his flushed cheeks to the table where he sat opposite his father.

“Reach deep inside you, Liam.” Issuing an exhortation Thayet had heard him offer their second son a thousand times, Jon sounded as drained and frustrated as Liam looked. 

“I’m reaching as deep as I can, Papa,” snapped Liam. Of their three sons, he was the most like Jon in temperament, which meant he and Jon butted horns more often than rams in the spring. 

“Don’t you feel something–a force you can draw on that’s buried inside you–stirring to break free of your body?” Jon’s question was so desperate that Thayet would have wrapped her arms around the nape of his neck to offer what comfort she could if his distress wasn’t from him pushing their son to perform an impossible task. By all the gods, Jon knew, even if he couldn’t accept it, that Liam didn’t have the Gift and should have let sleeping dragons lie with regard to Liam and magic. He shouldn’t have dragged Liam and himself through this torture that forced Thayet to soothe both of them yet again. 

“You know, I do feel something stirring inside me, Papa.” His chair scraping the floor, Liam surged to his feet and stomped toward the door Thayet had left open when she came for the taxation book. “It’s my temper, and it’s driving me away from you.” 

“Liam!” Jon jabbed a shaking finger at the chair Liam had shoved away from the table. “Sit down. We aren’t done here, and you don’t have my leave to go.”

“We are done here, because I don’t have any magic no matter how hard you try to pull it out of me. I’m sorry I’m such a disappointment to you since I don’t have the Gift, Papa.” Liam’s heels punished the floor as he stormed down the hallway.

“You aren’t a disappointment to me!” Jon raised his voice to be heard by a rapidly retreating Liam, but Liam had apparently fled far enough that he believed he could plausibly claim deafness to his father’s injunctions. “Come back here so we can discuss this respectfully please.” 

When Liam showed no indication of returning, Thayet squeezed Jon’s slumped shoulder and murmured, “I’ll go speak with him, dear.” 

“That would be a wise idea, thank you.” Jon gave her a wry smile as he kneaded his temples the way a cook might a loaf of bread before it vanished into the oven. “Obviously, he has no intention of listening to me.”

“He’ll listen to me now”–Thayet kissed the temples he massaged–“and once I’ve calmed him down, he’ll listen to you.”

The taxation tome forgotten, Thayet followed her son down the corridor to a balcony. For a moment, she stood silently in the doorway, her black braid blowing in the mild breeze off the Olorun as she watched Liam rip a roll he had pilfered from the breakfast table that morning (Liam, born to rebel against protocol, became only more resolved to slip food into his pockets the more times an apoplectic Master Oakbridge condemned the habit as proof of a thievish disposition) and scatter the crumbs for a flock of sparrows that had alighted on the brass balustrade. 

“I hate it when Papa prods at me about magic.” Realizing she was there, Liam spun to face her, his jaw clenched in defiance and tears burning in his hazel eyes that were so much like her own that it dizzied her sometimes. “No matter how much he pokes at me, I’m not going to suddenly develop the Gift any more than I’m going to sprout wings like these little sparrows.” 

“You understand that, I understand that, and even your father understands that though he has trouble accepting it sometimes.” Thayet joined her son at the railing, admiring the cloudless sky that was as clear a blue as Jon’s eyes that was tranquilly above the tempestuousness in her family. “I know it irritates and hurts you when your father pushes you about magic, but that doesn’t entitle you to snarl and stomp out on him. You aren’t a toddler in the nursery any longer, Liam, and you must stop acting like one no matter how provoked you might feel.” 

“I’ll apologize to Papa later, Mama.” Finished feeding the sparrows, Liam’s fists balled the railing, and Thayet observed inwardly this was the most repentant response to a reprimand that she could have expected from a prickly Liam.

“Good.” Thayet patted his bristling back. “I’ll speak with your father about not testing you for magic in the future.” 

“Thank you.” The gratitude was sounded torn from Liam’s tight lips. 

“You have my eyes and my lack of a Gift.” Thayet was pleased when she felt the tension coiled in Liam’s muscles beginning to relax. Thinking with tinge of humor and a pang of grief that Liam would have been disconcerted if one named in his honor had possessed the Gift that so disturbed him, she went on soft as a lost soul, “Your namesake, Liam Ironarm, would be proud that you’re quite devoid of magic, you know, since magic always unsettled him.” 

“I want to be a mighty warrior like him.” With his chin lifted, Liam did look fearsome as the Shang Dragon. “I never wanted to be a mage, and don’t care that I can’t become one.” 

Later as she and her husband left for the council meeting, Thayet asked Jon as he rested his arm beneath hers, “Liam did apologize to you, dear?” 

“Yes.” There was a dry edge to Jon’s tone as he added, “I also apologized to him for pushing him to show magic since I sense that is what you’re truly curious about, darling.” 

“I’m curious about both.” Thayet squeezed his wrist. “I don’t think that you should probe Liam for magic ever again. He doesn’t have it, and it only upsets you and him every time you press the issue.” 

“I know.” Jon reply was short and unsatisfying. 

“You know that I think that, or you know that you shouldn’t keep prodding Liam about magic?” Thayet tapped her husband’s fingers with her own. 

“Both.” Jon guided her fingers to his lips for a quick kiss. “I’ll stop testing Liam for the Gift, and all three of us–you, Liam, and me–will be the happier for it.”


End file.
